I invite you to turn in your Bibles to Colossians chapter one, and as we were singing that final song, hope of the nations promised salvation. I felt a bit like a runner waiting for the gun to go off so I could come up here and preach about our supreme savior. We finally have a house, so thank you for your prayers and all of your help. We have been greatly blessed, and as we're in the process of unpacking, I'm coming across our Christmas stuff and starting to set that up and was just thinking as well, sitting looking at the stage. I don't know, I haven't been here long enough to know who's responsible for Christmas decorations here, but thank you for the beautiful decorations in the church and I will know who you are one day. Colossians chapter one. The project was called Heaven Gemini. Heaven Gemini, Dr. Sergio Canavero, the head of the project, desired to be the first surgeon to successfully complete a human head transplant. The procedure would require about 100 surgeons, it would take approximately 36 hours to complete, and he estimated it would cost about 15 million dollars. The goal was to remove the head and part of the spinal cord from one person and then successfully fuse it onto another. And then after keeping the patient in a month-long coma, they planned to start releasing electricity to try to kind of get the nerves going. And the doctor estimated that after about one year, the patient should be up and walking around. But the procedure needed something else other than just the medical knowledge. It needed a willing participant. It needed somebody who was willing to undergo this lethal procedure. And in steps a man named Valery Spiridonov. Valery Spiridonov. He's a 30-year-old man with a rare genetic condition. And as a man in his 30s, he wasn't expected to live past his 20s, so he's figuring, well, I'm living on borrowed time, I'm going to die anyway. So, deciding he had nothing else to lose, he volunteered for this procedure back in 2015. And so begins this multi-year process that would end, in theory, with his head being moved onto another. Well, A few years after volunteering, while prep work is still being done, the man who was going to get a new body actually has a change of heart. It turns out that it's reported that he got married. He was able to have a child and decided that attaching his head to another body probably was not worth the risk. And so he stepped out because he knew that were you to remove his head, that would give him a good chance of not surviving. We all live by that principle, I think. As of today, Canavero, the doctor, still has not attempted his procedure. But while the day for that to happen to a physical body has not yet come, spiritual head transplants are far too common throughout the history of the Church, and the Colossian Church is facing just that issue. The believers in Colossae are interacting with false teachers who are telling them, you need to have a spiritual head transplant. If you look with me briefly at Colossians chapter 2, verse 19, he says that these false teachers were not holding fast to the head from whom the whole body, nourished and knit together through its joints and ligaments, grows with a growth that is from God. These wolves wanted to remove the true head. and put something else in his place in the church. And this caused countless issues, both in their doctrine and in their living. It led some to believe that they could get to God through the observance of certain festivals. It led others to try to worship angels as a way to kind of indirectly worship the Lord, and of all the problems they faced, all of them could be traced back in one way or another to this. Churches and Christians cannot thrive once they have lost their connection to their true head, to the Lord Jesus Christ. The Christian life, apart from an all and love for Christ is a body without a head. It is a car without gasoline. It is a computer without an operating system. It does not work. So Paul writes to these believers, urging them to hold fast to the one true head. Look with me at Colossians 1, beginning in verse 15. He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation, for by him All things were created in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authority. All things were created through him and for him, and he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross. Last week, from verses 15 through 17, we saw Paul elevate Christ as the supreme creator. He is supreme over all because he is the creator of all. But Paul has much more to say. A person can believe all the right things about the deity of Christ as creator and still perish in hell. A church can have an orthodox view of Christ as creator and yet be spiritually dead if it has a deficient view of Christ's work on the cross. So in verse 18, Paul pivots. He shifts from Christ's work as creator, and he looks at another aspect of his work, and he declares that Christ is not only the creator, but also the savior. Churches that hold tightly to Christ's work as savior spiritually thrive. Churches, on the other hand, that reject that or decide to downplay it, spiritually decay. And as basic as this may seem, in our sin nature, pre-programmed. We are naturally pulled away from or drawn away from resting completely and purely in the grace of God. Everything in us, everything in our flesh naturally leads us away from God's grace, not toward it. And when we drift from Christ-saving work, it impacts our daily lives. Have there ever been times in your life where following Christ has felt more like checklist, the things that you just need to do, and you go through the motions, and you know that you should go through the motions, but it's more just routine than a desire to genuinely grow and to love your Savior. Are you burdened by guilt from your past that you just cannot seem to let go? You believe in Jesus, you know he's the creator and Lord, but at times you struggle to genuinely believe in the complete and utter and perfect forgiveness promised from Christ. That permeates every detail of your life, every crevice. Or maybe there's someone here this morning who doesn't know him. You've heard about Jesus, you've been in church, But where do you stand with Christ? Do you know him not only as creator, but as savior? Can you say that he has delivered you from the domain of darkness, that he has redeemed you by his marvelous grace? We need the compass of God's word to constantly point us the right direction and to remind us of the all-sufficient, perfect, work of Christ on the cross, to hold fast to him, to stay the course, to keep him front and center, to continuously and relentlessly pursue Christ. So from Colossians 1, verses 18 through 20, we will see three ways, the three ways that Christ is exalted as the supreme savior so that your faith will be found in Jesus alone. and so that you will continuously cling to Christ in your life. At the start of verse 18, we see that because of the saving work of Christ, he is supreme over his church. He is supreme in his church. Then in verse 18, we also see that he is supreme through his resurrection. And finally, in verses 19 through 20, we will see that because of his work on the cross, he is supreme over creation. Look with me at the start of verse 18, where we see supreme in his church. Paul begins verse 18, and he is the head of the body, the church. So Paul has already established that Christ as creator has the right to all things, and that he reigns over all things, but now he gets more specific. In verse 18, Paul zeroes in and he focuses on Christ's role in a very specific group and how that is distinct from anywhere else in creation. He is uniquely the head of the body, that is, the church. Broadly speaking, the body of Christ, the church, includes all those who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. This is all those who are saved by his grace. This is those, according to verse 12, that share in the inheritance of the saints of light. Those who, according to verse 22, will be presented to God holy and blameless and above reproach. So the body is not all of creation. He's zeroing in now. It is those who believe in Christ and trust in his death, burial, and resurrection. And this group includes believers all over the state of Alabama, all over America, and the world. Here, Paul imagines the church as a living organism. He imagines it, like anybody, as one that lives, that has members. that grows and it thrives. But in Colossians 118, he zeroes in on one specific member, on one aspect, the most indispensable part of the body. Christ and Christ alone is the head of the church. And we can all relate to this in some way because we all have heads. We can picture this. We know what he's talking about. We can relate to the idea of the head as the center of thought. It's the home of the human brain. It's the part that controls and guides the rest of the body. Riley sometimes likes to play a game with me where I pick her up and I put her on my shoulders and she grabs my head like this. And I start walking in a straight line and when she wants me to turn, she pulls on my head without a turn. So if I'm going this way, she pulls, so I turn turn that way, and she's directing me. So if she tells me to turn left, I go left. Right, I go right. If she has me walk straight into a wall, I walk straight into a wall. She is controlling the direction I go, because whatever the head, whatever direction the head goes, the body must follow. Riley gets it. That's exactly the point Paul is making. Christ and Christ alone is positioned as the head of the church, and because of that, whatever, I'm sorry, I can't read that. Does that say to move this out of the way? I apologize. Take this off. Okay. Thank you. Sorry about that. I saw the sign, but my eyesight is not good enough. Bringing this back, so if the church is a body, Christ is its head. If the church is a building, Christ is its cornerstone. And both of these images are vivid and distinct, but ultimately they make the same point. Christ and Christ alone is supreme over his people. Do you remember the words of Jesus in Matthew 16, 18? Jesus is speaking to Peter and he says, I tell you, you are Peter and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." Who will build the church? Christ. Who owns the church? He says, my church. It is his. It will not fail because Christ, as the head of the church, has declared it so. And what is the primary way Christ, the head, demonstrated his love for the body? He laid down his life for her. He died for her. This is his ultimate demonstration of love. Do you remember Ephesians 5.25? Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her. The church is his idea. He alone chooses her. He alone creates her. He alone dies for her and he has promised to sustain her until she is presented holy and blameless and perfect before the Father. And as members of his body, those who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ start to gather together and meet together as local churches. So a question for us this morning, what must characterize a local church? If Christ is the head of the body, what must be true of individual local churches, local expressions of his body? How must we be different from any other gathering in the world in terms of society and culture? True churches are distinct from everything else because only true churches are said to be Christ is head. Think of it this way, when you go to the grocery store, or to work, or to the gas station, would you say these are places where Christ is Lord and submitted to as the head? You walk into this place and you know everyone here recognizes Christ is the head. That's not the world we live in, but that is the world of the church, where we gather together as those submitting and recognizes that he is the head, and that's the joy of being part of a local church, of being one. We gather together. We hold fast to Christ. We submit to Christ. We have the mind of Christ. We submit to his word. We believe and obey what he says through preaching and through song and through the public reading of scripture and through taking the Lord's Supper and personal conversation and mutual encouragement and love. We reflect and make much of Christ. who is the head of the church. He alone is supreme over the church. And what happens to a church that does not hold fast to Christ? What are the outcomes of that? It will be malnourished. Its members will not spiritually grow. It will experience disunity. It will not be knit together by love and truth. So God's word urges us, hold fast. to Christ as the only true head of the church. It seems every few years there is a new gimmick, a new approach, a new way of doing church. So churches decide they don't need preaching. They decide we'll go to the community and just figure out what should we be and then we'll just become that. We'll come up with a new marketing technique and we'll increase our numbers. But we'll modify what the Bible says about qualified leadership or doctrine and everything else would be everything else in between. And all of that would be fine were it not for one detail. We are not the head of the church. Christ and Christ alone is. So may he always be the front, the head, the priority of this local church. He is supreme over his church. Second, he is supreme through his resurrection. Look with me at the middle of verse 18. He is the beginning. Now, when we say he is the beginning, what question does that obviously make us ask? He is the beginning of what? What is he the beginning of? And in this case, Paul explains what he has in mind with the next phrase. Look there with me. The firstborn from the dead. Notice that Paul uses the same word in verse 15 that he does in verse 18. So Christ is the firstborn of all creation, and Christ is the firstborn from the dead. We saw in detail last week that firstborn, it's not primarily about time. It's about position. It's about authority. To say he's the firstborn is to say that he is the highest, that he is above all else. So think of it this way, who was the first person in the Bible, in terms of time, to rise from the dead? Jesus? No, it wasn't even someone that Jesus raised from the dead. The first person to rise from the dead in scripture was an unnamed boy, risen from the dead by God through the prophet Elijah. and 1st Kings 17. So this has nothing to do with time. Jesus himself raises multiple people from the dead and yet none of them are the firstborn. This is a title again for Christ and Christ alone. He stands above the rest. Because of his resurrection from the dead, the promise of future resurrection is made for all those who will believe in him. This future hope is secured for us because Christ and Christ alone is risen. So where does your hope in future resurrection come from? Where does it begin? What do you look to in the past to know you have hope in the future? Your resurrected Savior. We look to Christ. Consider the words of Jesus in John 14, 19. I will not leave you as orphans. I will come to you. Yet a little while, and the world will see me no more, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. So because he's going to rise from the dead, Jesus is assuring them, don't worry. I'm going to die, but I'm not abandoning you. I will rise from the dead, and not only will I live, but I guarantee that you will live with me for eternity. Our future hope is built on the rock of Christ's resurrection. 2 Timothy 1.10 says that God's promise to save from eternity past has been manifested through the appearing of our Savior Christ Jesus, who, don't miss this, who abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel. He was not the first one to rise from the dead, but he is the only one whose resurrection abolishes death. Only his resurrection swallows death and victory. He is the firstborn from the dead because through his resurrection, Christ declares that he is Lord and that his work cannot be thwarted because he is alive. So the hope promised to you cannot be taken away. It's like a lit match to a wick. His resurrection is the beginning. It's the start. It's the cause. It's the event in history that ignites this future hope. in all those who will believe in him by faith. So Christian, because of his resurrection, your promised inheritance is undefiled. Because of his resurrection, your future hope is unfading. Because of his resurrection, you can come to God even now with, dare we believe Hebrews 4.16, boldness. Boldness. Many years after Jesus rose from the dead, a man named John was in exile on an island called Patmos. And he is old, he is worn down, and he has a revelation of the Lord Jesus Christ. And in Revelation 1, if you would turn with me there just for a moment. In Revelation 1, John describes the wonder and splendor of the resurrected Lord. And he is so terrified by the glory of what he sees, he falls at the feet of his Savior as though a dead man. Here's the scene. Jesus is before John in his glory. John has fallen at his feet as though dead. And how would you expect Jesus to respond? What would you expect him to do? When one of his followers falls at his feet in terror in response to his sheer holiness, what does the resurrected Son of God, the Supreme Creator and Savior, do? Look at Revelation 117. The middle of the verse, Jesus begins speaking. Fear not. I am the first and the last and the living one. I died and behold, I am alive forevermore and I have the keys of death and Hades. It says in verse 17 that he lays his right hand on John. So he has his disciples before him, he lays his hand on him, and he says, do not be afraid, because I have defeated death. I love that verse. Christian, this is the heart of your Savior toward his people. He lays his hand on John, and he comforts him with the resurrection. He says, John, you don't need to be afraid. I am alive. John, you don't need to be afraid, because I died and I rose, and I alone hold the keys to death itself. Putting this and Colossians 1 together, I and I alone am the firstborn from the dead, so you need not be afraid of me. This is the heart of our Savior toward us. Jesus being the firstborn from the dead means God's wrath has been satisfied. It means we find our rest in him. It means our hope is unshakable. He is alive and he is supreme over death. And should this not spur us on to holy lives in the present, Believer, you are united with Christ in his death and his resurrection. You have been raised with Christ. You are united with him in his death and his resurrection. So what? Fix your mind on things above, not on things that are on earth. For Paul says, for you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. Your life is not hidden in someone who's in a tomb. Your life is hidden in the resurrected Lord of all, the creator and sustainer of all. The hope promised for us in the future breaks into the present as we grow in holiness. Loving God more. Loving sin less. Christ's supremacy over death changes everything. And that's exactly what Paul says. Turn back with me to Colossians chapter 1. Colossians 1, we continue in verse 18, where he says he is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything, everything, he might be preeminent. Because of the resurrection, Jesus must have first place in everything. We saw from verse 16 last week that everything is for him as creator, and now in verse 18, he's preeminent. He has first place over everything because of his resurrection. But as we come to the end of verse 18, as I'm studying this, I think to myself, if we're being honest with this text, a question comes up as I read those words. He says that he has first place in everything through all of creation. Now, maybe you recognize his preeminence, but everything in creation certainly doesn't seem to. The nations continue to rage against him. Sin and sickness and disease and death continues. The culture we live in continues to rot and decay. People continue to disobey his word. So if we say that Christ is preeminent over everything, that might mean something to us, but the world doesn't seem to care. So here's the question. Will this ever change? Will Christ ever receive the honor he is due as the preeminent one? And as we close this glorious passage about the supremacy of Christ, Paul wants to answer that question by looking at the work of Christ from one more angle. And we see that he is supreme over his creation. Because of his work on the cross, he is supreme over his creation. Look with me at verse 19. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross. The first word in verse 19 could also be translated as because. So verses 19 and 20 give further reasons why Christ is preeminent over all. So not only is Christ preeminent because of his resurrection, but also because in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell." As a human being, as a person, Christ does something as God in the flesh, Paul says, that has cosmic implications. And this is a direct response to the false teachers at the time. They would have said that God is kind of distant and far off, and there's these what are called emanations, these sort of expressions of God, and you need to worship different beings and do different things because there's no one emanation that's fully God, that is completely containing everything that God is. There's no one that we can go to. And with the statement, in him the fullness of deity dwells, Paul takes that false teaching, he douses it in gasoline and he lights it on fire. And he says, you don't go to other things. You don't need other sources to spiritually thrive. You don't worship other beings. You don't dabble in other stuff, because in Christ, the fullness dwells. Only in Christ. And as the one in whom fullness dwells, he does this work, in verse 20, through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross. Now, some have misused and abused this verse to teach something called universalism. That means that everyone ultimately, in the end, will be saved. And to truly understand this verse, and most importantly, its implications, we have to first ask, what does he mean by to reconcile? What is Paul saying? Well, the word translated reconcile refers to a change in relationship. So you have two parties, that are at odds with each other. And when you have conflict, those involved must take action in order to mend the relationship. So don't miss this in verse 20. Who takes action? Who is the one doing the work? Christ does the reconciling. Whatever he means here, he's saying Christ does the changing. The distance between God and creation The phrase, through him, it's placed in the emphatic position to emphasize Christ is the one bringing these together. It's his work. Through the work of Christ, God is reconciling all things in creation to himself. So this is not man's work. This is God's work. I have an older sister, and like siblings do, when we were younger, from time to time, we would have silly arguments that would get pretty heated. And my parents, whenever we were arguing, they would say to us on a regular basis, it takes two people to have an argument. And I hated that. Because they were basically saying, no matter how wrong you think your sister is, what have you done to advance it? And they also would pull out of that, you're both involved in the conflict, so you can both do something to stop the conflict. That's usually true in human-to-human arguments. But that's not how it works with God. God is holy. Creation is corrupt. God is 100% right. We are 100% wrong in our sin. So if there's going to be reconciliation, God must do something for us. God must come to us. And Colossians 121 even says that human beings by nature are alienated from God, hostile, doing evil deeds, and because of that, unless, again, he takes action, the reconciliation will never happen. So in verse 20, God does something through his work on the cross. Christ is reconciling, or think of it this way, changing, or restoring, or reconciling all things to himself. Now that leads to another question. What does Paul mean by all things? Now, that's a very important question, because if we get that question wrong, we become heretics. So, what is he saying? By all things, everyone will be saved, that everyone will be reconciled in the sense that everyone will ultimately be in heaven one day. Well, notice that the reconciliation of verse 20 is not restricted to people. Look closely at the middle of verse 20. All things, whether on earth or in heaven. Paul is reusing the same language he used in verse 16 to describe creation itself. The all things in verse 16 is just as expansive and exhaustive as the all things reconciled in verse 20. Verse 16, he creates all things. Verse 20, he reconciles all things. There are no limits on this. Just as there's no limit on what he has created, there's no limit on what he reconciles. The scope of his reconciliation is complete over his creation. This is all creation without exception. So the point of verse 20 is not the salvation of every individual, but a change in relationship between God and his creation. This reconciling work includes mountains and valleys, stars and sea lions, rocks and waves, planets and people. So why must creation itself and everything it entails be changed or reconciled to God? Turn with me back to Genesis 1. And as you turn there, imagine you're turning back time. History is running back in reverse. as we turn back to Genesis 1. This is before the death of Christ. This is before God established a nation called Israel, before God called Abraham, and before he spared Noah from the flood, before sin, before Adam and Eve made a choice that ruined everything. Genesis 1, look with me briefly at verse 4. And God saw that the light was good. Jump to verse 10, we're gonna go really quickly here just to make the point. Verse 10, it was good. Verse 12, it was good. Verse 18, it was good. Verse 21, it was good. 26, it was good. Then finally, look at Genesis 131. And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. Every aspect, every atom, of creation is good. Trees were good. Bugs were good. Whales swimming in the sea and human beings are good. But by the time we walk out of the garden with Adam and Eve at the end of Genesis 3, all of this is shattered. Sin destroys the relationship between God and man, but it does even more than that. Look at Genesis 3.17. Genesis 3 verse 17. And to Adam he said, because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, you shall not eat of it. Cursed is the ground because of you. In pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life. So Genesis 1.10, the dry land is good. By Genesis 3.17, it is cursed. The ramifications of sin. are so far reaching it is even permeating the soil. Have you ever walked through the woods and felt a sudden stab of pain and looked down and then seen a speck of blood because a thorn caught you while you're walking through? Or you stand up and you feel an ache in your body. You approach an animal and it runs away from you in fear. Or you see an animal that you know can eat you so you stay far away from it, you're afraid of it. Kristen recently went for a run on the island, and while jogging down the road, she reads this sign nailed to the side of a tree. Danger. Alligators present. Stay back from water's edge. Do not leave children or pets unattended. There's not signs like that in Maryland. We are not in Maryland anymore. And we are certainly not in Eden anymore. Romans 8, 20 through 23 says, all of creation is groaning, longing to be set free from bondage. Because of sin, what was once very good is now subject to futility. And whenever you see a dead animal on the side of the road, or you feel a pain in your back when you stand, the groaning of creation echoes, reminding us, this is wrong. Something must be done. Sin must not only be forgiven, but creation itself and all that it contains must be restored or reconciled to God. And here's the glory of Colossians 1.20. As far-reaching as the poison of sin is in creation, just as far-reaching is His work and redemption of His creation, His reconciling work and creation. What is God doing to set everything right? Back to Colossians chapter one, he says at the end of verse 20, making peace by the blood of his cross. So Christian, when creation reminds you that everything is broken by sin, you remind yourself of the power of the cross. You remind yourself that through his death, not only are believers saved, but all of creation will ultimately be restored to God. Christ's death on the cross, ripples throughout all of creation, guaranteeing that not only is he preeminent over all things, but that he will be honored as preeminent over all things, over all of his creation. Verse 20 is a declaration of victory. It's a declaration of restoration and renewal. In Christ, God is reclaiming and remaking the entire universe, undoing the curse of sin and making peace between God and his creation. Remember the guarantee of Philippians 2, 9 through 11. Therefore, God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow. And here's how exhaustive that is. In heaven and on earth and under the earth. And every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. Because of Christmas, and because of the death of Christ, and because of the resurrection of Christ, every knee will bow. Every tongue will confess. And in this sense, everything, things in heaven and on earth, will be reconciled to the sovereign, supreme ruler of all. And as we close, if you have not trusted in Christ's sufficient work to save you. If you are depending on yourself or living for yourself, you need to hear this. Christ is Lord over your life. You will bow your knee to Christ. And you will do so either willingly, by faith in his finished work, or by submission to give him glory as King of kings and Lord of lords. Some will come willingly by his grace and some will refuse and face his eternal wrath and hell, but all of his creation will pay him his due. Everything in your life, everything around you is a river flowing toward verse 20. The maddening news headline, the disease or pain that seems like it will never and the longing for things to be made right. And remember this one, Christian, the longing to be with Christ. To have every temptation gone and to be remade and renewed and to stand before your Savior. Colossians 1.20 means Jesus wins. None can rise above him because he alone is preeminent. None can reach God apart from him because he alone is Savior. None can have hope apart from him because he alone is the firstborn from the dead. None can escape his rule because he alone is coming to rule on earth. All will bow to him, the highly exalted king of kings, because as creator and savior, he alone is worthy. Let's pray. Father, every Every word of this passage, I pray, would stir in our hearts and in our minds a wonder and awe of the Lord Jesus Christ. Father, I thank you that this church, at Christ Fellowship Baptist Church, that Christ is head, that we worship him as Lord. And Father, I pray that we would hold fast. I pray that we would have hope because we know that Christ as the creator and savior has risen from the dead. And Lord, I pray that we would know even now that when we face the pain of living in this fallen world and that when we see the nation's rage and as we wonder, when is this gonna end? Is this ever going to lead anywhere? That we have your promise that you will change everything. God, we thank you that you will get your glory, that you are a God who speaks and that when you speak, it is guaranteed. So would we live knowing that you are Lord, would we love you more, delight in Christ as the supreme creator and savior. It is in his name and for his glory, I pray, amen.